Anaheim Wants to Pull Plug on Rap Entertainers

Reacting to a shooting incident at a rap concert last week, city leaders have asked the owners of the Celebrity Theatre to ban rap performances there.

A trustee of the Freedman Foundation, a nonprofit group that owns the theater, met late Monday night with the managers who lease the Celebrity Theatre to discuss the shooting and concerns about the kinds of acts to be booked there in the future. However, officials declined comment on the meeting.

The proposal to bar rap performances comes after police were forced to clear the downtown theater Thursday when concert-goers clashed, leaving a 16-year-old boy wounded as he waited to enter the sold-out show featuring popular rap entertainers Ice Cube and Too Short.

“I’m hoping to get some letters written to the council saying there will be no more rap concerts,” Mayor Fred Hunter said. “Enough’s enough.”

Before the Monday meeting, Jim Woodin, a foundation trustee, said he had talked with City Council members about their concerns regarding the booking of rap artists at the theater and would bring those concerns to the meeting with Celebrity Theatre officials.

The Freedman Foundation is named for the late Leo Freedman, a developer who built thousands of homes in Anaheim, the Anaheim Plaza Resort Hotel and Melodyland Theater, among other projects. It leases the Celebrity Theatre to EJH Inc., a Phoenix-based firm owned by Edward Haddad.

Woodin’s meeting with Celebrity Theatre officials was originally scheduled for Wednesday, and it was unclear whether that meeting would go on as scheduled.

“I’m looking to discuss what’s best for the organization and what’s best for the city,” Woodin said, adding that he did not believe the foundation could impose a ban on rap acts under its contract with the theater.

He declined further comment about his discussions with council members, but Hunter said he hoped to get a commitment supporting the ban from foundation trustees Wednesday.

“Jim is trying to help,” Hunter said. “He seems like he wants to get something done.”

Susan Clary, a spokeswoman for RCA Records, which produces Too Short, said the Anaheim proposal would mean that one less place would be available for rap entertainers to perform. The Celebrity Theatre is the only venue in Orange County that regularly schedules rap acts.

Celebrity Theatre management has not commented on Thursday night’s events in which a Los Angeles youth was shot outside the theater lobby while unrelated skirmishes erupted inside among unruly patrons.

The wounded youth, Willie Baker, was shot in the abdomen. He was listed in fair condition Monday at Long Beach Memorial Hospital.

While clearing the crowd of 2,500 people, Anaheim police arrested three men on suspicion of obstructing a police officer, but no arrests have been made in connection with the shooting.

Police said they did not know what caused the shooting, but witnesses said they saw a man dressed in a long coat pacing and threatening to fire on a line of people waiting to enter the theater. The man reportedly fired one shot after an unknown assailant struck him on the back of the head, one witness said.

Following Thursday’s violence, Hunter and other council members made demands including lifting the theater’s beer and wine license and increasing security. Hunter said Monday that the license removal remains an option and that he has asked the Police Department to compile a list of incidents during all shows at the theater for the past three years.

“They (theater management) have got the message loud and clear,” Hunter said.

According to Councilman Tom Daly, Anaheim Police Chief Joseph T. Molloy has been asked to personally compile a report on last week’s violence and make a presentation to the City Council. Daly said he wanted time to consider the chief’s report, but added that he would consider seeking a removal of the theater’s license to sell beer and wine as an option.

The discussion about future rap bookings at the Celebrity Theatre comes just as a yearlong moratorium on rap shows was lifted at Oakland’s Henry J. Kaiser Auditorium. Ironically, rap made its comeback there Saturday night with the same headliners who were on the Celebrity marquee in Anaheim--Ice Cube and Too Short.

The auditorium and the Oakland Coliseum imposed the ban after a series of violent incidents at rap shows, including a chair-throwing brawl at the coliseum involving rival gangs last December during a show by controversial rappers 2 Live Crew.

Oakland police said no major disturbances were reported at the Saturday show, but news reports stated that heavy security, including a circling police helicopter, was on hand to keep order.